Honda now has independent shops checking for Takata airbags

by David Undercoffler of www.autoweek.com

Collision shops now have access to affected VIN database

Honda has added yet another weapon in its battle to find owners of vehicles with a potentially faulty Takata airbag module: independent repair shops.

The automaker has teamed up with CCC, one of the largest software providers to collision repair shops in the industry, to create a program that flags a Honda or an Acura vehicle with an open recall notice when it's brought in for collision repair.

The collaboration "will augment and extend our existing recall notification process, providing us with an additional touch point to help reach consumers with recalled yet unrepaired vehicles," said Leigh Guarnieri, the national collision marketing manager for Honda. "Safety is everyone's responsibility."

22,000 shops

CCC's program, dubbed True Recall, was rolled out in October to all 22,000 repair shops across the country that use its data network. When an estimate is being written, CCC's system will run the vehicle's VIN against a database provided by Honda.

If the vehicle has an open Takata airbag recall that hasn't been fixed, a notification will pop up on the screen and a copy of the recall will be printed for the consumer. The notification advises the body shop to tell the owner of the vehicle, check with the owner on what Honda or Acura dealership they'd like to use and then the body shop is encouraged to reach out to that dealership to facilitate the repair on the customer's behalf.

The notification of customers via independent repair shops outside Honda's purview speaks to the urgency the automaker faces in identifying as many vehicles as possible that could have the potentially lethal Takata airbag modules inside.

In October, Honda and U.S. regulators confirmed the 11th U.S. death linked to faulty Takata airbag inflators. Another five deaths have been identified globally.

Pay per VIN

The Takata inflator crisis -- the largest safety recall in U.S. history -- has affected 15 automakers and led to the recall through 2019 of nearly 70 million inflators in U.S. vehicles. Honda and Acura vehicles make up 10.7 million of that total.

Honda has gone so far as to scour salvage yards and auto recyclers across the country to find its vehicles with affected airbag modules and has purchased thousands to keep them from returning to the road.

Honda approached CCC with the idea for the program, citing its 60 percent market share of the industry's data services, with Mitchell and Audatex splitting the rest. If the collaboration between Honda and CCC proves successful, the automaker might reach out to the other companies to explore a similar program.

The automaker pays CCC for each VIN it identifies as having an open recall, and it recently has averaged more than 1,000 VIN matches a day, a Honda spokesman said. Many of these are older-model Hondas that have passed through multiple owners, often the hardest consumer cohort to reach with a vehicle recall.

Eight of those matches have come from Vatche Derderian's three Fix Auto shops in the Los Angeles area. Fix Auto was already using CCC's data system, so Derderian's shops didn't need to do anything to enable the notifications.

"I definitely applaud Honda for putting it out there to do this because then it gets us more involved with the OEM and what's going on with their vehicles," Derderian told Automotive News.

Plus, customers affected have been taken aback by the level of service such a notification implies, despite not coming from a Honda dealer.

"It feels really good to do something for the consumer beyond just repairing their vehicle," Derderian said.

The article "Honda enlists independent shops in recall effort" originally appeared on autonews.com